A Slayer's Story
by karabair
Summary: If Chekhov had written for Buffy. . .


A Slayer's Story  
  
*Explanatory note -- I wrote this story last summer, shortly after the "Buffy" finale, in response to an assignment in a creative writing class, which was to rewrite "A Lady's Story" by Anton Chekhov in a "modern" setting. I was annoyed at the professor and so I wrote this as a joke. I didn't quite have the nerve to bring it in and read it in class, although I would have if I had thought I could do it with a straight face. Reading the Chekhov story might help; it's very short and easy to find online, though for some reason this editor won't let me put in a link. Anyway, enjoy! *  
  
Six seasons ago Angel, the ensouled vampire, and I were patrolling towards midnight in the time of the impending apocalypse, to fetch the Talisman of Korihor from its ancient crypt.  
  
The evening was magnificent, but we heard the hissing of vampires and the groaning of demons heading straight toward us. The onslaught of the undead was approaching us and we were approaching it.   
  
Against the background of the vampire attack the crypt shone white. There was the scent of sulfur and hell-spawned slime. My companion was in high spirits. He kept laughing and putting on his vampire face. He said it would be nice if we could dive into the Hellmouth and be incinerated in the molten rock. . .  
  
Then the first wave came. Vampires and demons ran at us from all sides. I stabbed. I kicked. I karate chopped. Angel bit. The dust of incinerated vampires whirled around us.   
  
"This rocks!" Angel cried. "I mean it kicks ass!"  
  
Infected by his gaiety, I too began laughing at the thought that my haltertop was drenched and in a minute my nipples would be showing and we might be attacked by more vampires.  
  
Slaying vampires in the middle of an apocalypse while anyone in America who happens to get the WB can see one's nipples, thrills one and makes one's nipples even harder. By the time we sneaked into my mother's back window, the wave of attacking vampires had ceased. There was no one else with or without a soul in my bedroom.   
  
Angel stripped off his wet T-shirt, for the sake of gratuitous beefcake, but he left mine on because this wasn't HBO and I was still technically underage. He stood in the doorway, his spiky hair illuminated with lightning, causing me to wonder why he, known as Angel, had spikey hair, when character known as "Spike" did not.   
  
"Buffy Summers," said Angel. "I would give my soul to spend eternity with you. Unfortunately, if I gave my soul I would instantly turn evil and I'd try to eat you, and you'd have to put a stake through my heart. And since that would be pretty uncool all around, I just want to look at you a while longer. At least until your halter top dries."  
  
I longed to go on endlessly staring at his shiny eyes and spikey hair, but we only got forty-eight minutes a week over twenty-two weeks, so the scene had to end.  
  
We snuck downstairs for a midnight snack. Angel laughed and drank a good deal of pig's blood, maintaining that it tasted of a hearty summer day and was the next best thing to actually having blood circulate through your body. I believed that this was intended as comic relief, although due to Angel's lack of basic comic timing or acting skills, it was somewhat hard to tell. But I laughed.  
  
As Angel got in the closet and I got in bed, I threw the window open, strung garlic around my neck, and felt a strange feeling take possession of my soul. I had a hit series. I had movie offers. I was one of the 50 Most Beautiful People. How nice that was!. . . I huddled up in bed trying to discover if I loved Angel or not,. . . knowing that these cliffhangers always bring the audience back for more, I fell asleep unable to reach any conclusion. And when in the morning I saw quivering patches of sunlight and shadows of the lime trees, I pulled down the blinds so that Angel would not be burned to a crisp if he ever tried to leave the closet. Humming, I dressed quickly but not so quickly as to keep the audience from glimpsing me in my undies and headed to school.   
  
And what happened afterwards? Why -- nothing. We did it, and Angel turned evil, and I had to kill him, and he came back from the dead, and he went to L.A. to be in an inferior spinoff. Vampiric acquaintances are charming only for three seasons, and only in Sunnydale; in L.A., and in inferior spinoffs, they lose their charm. When they come to save you in crossover episodes, it seems like a desperate move to improve the ratings of the spinoff, and becomes even more confusing when we switch networks. Angel spoke sometimes of love, but we all knew he would be back in spinoffville mooning after that Cordelia tramp as soon as the credits rolled. The truth was that I had was a Beautiful Person with a future in the movies, while he was strictly a TV actor and, as I was becoming increasingly anorexic and therefore more marketable, he was putting on a gut. We, both of us - I through the advice of my agent and he because he liked having top billing in the spinoff - thought of that barrier as very tall and thick, much like Angel himself. There is no wall that cannot be broken through, but the heroes of the modern television series know that the shelf life of any on-screen relationship is about a season and a half, max.   
  
I was loved, happiness was only a time slot and some plot contrivances away, and seemed to be almost touching me; I went on living in careless ease, slaying vampires, not trying to understand myself, sleeping with a refugee from GI Joe, and with yet another vampire, despite the fact that his blond hair and English accent were obviously fake. . . People passed in and out of my life. I lost a mom but gained a sister. Riley disappeared to an undercover government operation. Spike, at first evil but sexy, turned less evil, then evil again, then involuntarily good, then sort-of evil, then really evil, then not-exactly-evil but definitely sleazy, then actually good, then involuntarily evil, then really really good; then he saved the world and got burned to a crisp, thinking that this not-being-evil thing wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Oz played a kid named Evil in those fake spy movies, Willow played the flute in that movie where the kid fucked the pie, and then she came out of the closet, then turned evil, then good, and I was in that Scooby Doo movie, which in retrospect seems likely to have been evil. Giles left and came back and left and came back, and he never turned evil; he did try to kill Spike, out of confusion about whether Spike happened to be evil at that particular moment, but it worked out and if Spike hadn't been incinerated, they would have had a good laugh about it one day. The school burned down. The town burned up. Xander will never get a role in anything again, and still lives in his parents' incinerated basement - and all this, sweet and overwhelming in remembrance, passed with me as with everyone rapidly, leaving no trace, was not prized, and vanished like the dust of a crumbled vampire, except for those who shell out big bucks for the DVD's. . . Where is it all?  
  
The series is canceled, I have grown even skinnier; the pop star cameos, the ridiculous clothes, the corny jokes - all that has become nothing but a memory, and I see before me a flat desert distance; on the plain not one living soul or even a vampire, and outside there on the horizon it is dark and terrible. . .   
  
A ring at the bell. It is Angel. When in the winter I see the trees and remember how green they were in the summer, I still can't believe the gut he's put on. He has long given up declaring his love, and dislikes fighting demons, vampires, and a law firm that's apparently run by Satan.  
  
"Like, dude, what the hell is with you?" I ask.  
  
"Nothing," he answers.   
  
Silence again. This could not be good for ratings, I think, and then I remember that I no longer have a show. I thought of the past, I wondered why I had suddenly switched verb tenses and whether this is an issue of stylistic choice or the subtleties of Russian translation. I felt unbearably sorry for my poor showless self, and for Angel, languishing on the WB, which most people would not even consider to be a network, although he often tells me it is better than UPN.  
  
"My God! My God! My life is wasted!" I say. "I never got nominated for an Emmy, I've never even been on a real network. Now I'm doomed to a film career where I'll repeatedly play the hero's girlfriend, or killer-bait in slasher films. I'll hang from the balcony and scream for help and do all the things that 'Buffy' was created to protest against! And I just found out that in real life I'm married to Freddie Prinze's kid.!"  
  
And Angel sat and was silent, and he was sorry for me and I was sorry for him, and he understood that I must weep for cancellation had come.   
  
When I saw him to the door, he kissed my hand twice and looked a long while into my tear-stained face. At that moment I believe he recalled the vampire attack, the sulfur, the hellmouth, the biting, that wet halter-top, my nipples; but he said nothing, he merely shook his head and pressed my hand. God help him!   
  
After seeing him out, I went back to the fireplace, where the red embers, covered with ash, reminded me of burnt-up vampire, and I wondered why Spike, who managed to hold onto his lithe athletic body, had to be the one to get incinerated.  
  
Giles came in and, thinking I was asleep, called "Buffy!"   
  
"Not asleep," I said. "Just watching a reality show hosted by Monica Lewinsky." This was all television had to offer us anymore, and I felt an immeasurable sadness. . . "Giles?" I said. "We definitely need to get HBO." 


End file.
